Oregon House Health Care Committee chairman Mitch Greenlick has offered some ill considered opinions regarding healthcare, all of which I am sorry to say are in agreement with Barack Obama's recess appointment to head up the Medicare program. Dr. Donald Berwick is the presidents choice, but rather than go through a Senate confirmation process, he was appointed to the position and put in place while the Senate was at recess. Commemorating 60 years of England's National Health Service in July of 2008, Dr. Berwick gave broad praise to the institution, attributing to it virtue for being a means by which wealth is taken from one group of people and given to another:“... sick people tend to be poorer and that poor people tend to be sicker. And that any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized and humane must—must--redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent health care is by definition redistributional. Britain, you chose well.”
Yes, Dr. Berwick, what you are speaking of is called theft. I suppose you might prefer the term legalized theft, but it is all one. Theft may or may not be legal. However, it is always immoral. Furthermore, the common thief does not pat himself on the back for his stealing, whereas bureaucratic dolts do.
Bureaucrats pat themselves on the back for stealing money and redistributing it, with themselves and the machine of government getting a big cut, and the intended recipients getting what's left. And the entire process is fraught with inside deals, kick backs to political supporters, allowances made to advantage union leadership and so forth. It stinks to high heaven, and now we have one of these clowns in the White House, and another as a recess appointment to head up Medicare. Beautiful.
ReplyDeleteMitch Greenlick and his ilk have no sense for looking at the pitfalls of their proposals, how human nature will work against the interests of the program they implement, nor how there will be negative consequences to the actions they take.
It's all annoyingly frustrating.
This guy Berwick makes me ill. We have the same type of muddled thinking right here in Oregon, where the Oregon Board of Medical Examiners has fashioned a new definition of professional conduct, which states that seeking for all patients to receive the 'same care' is a criteria upon which a physician is judged. Well, the physician is not able to affect these things, as they live in reality where one has to inform patients what is available to them and at what cost. We do not all drive the same cars. Why should it be a goal of the car dealer to be sure that all consumers get the same car? Perhaps the people should be allowed to make choices of their own?
ReplyDeleteNo, that's too much for the OBME to consider.
The dolts.
There is no doubt that Mitch Greenlick means well. Certainly he is not alone in thinking it appropriate that the state should pay for people's health care, and I am sure he does so thinking people would then be able to get the care they need. The fact that there are ample examples of these kinds of programs available in the world and the horrendously bad consequences they lead to make him without excuse for attempting to promote such programs. Mitch Greenlick very well may not have received treatment for his lymphoma if his medical decisions were being paid for by the government.
ReplyDeleteWhy should the government be placed in such a position? Why should it be that you can buy all kinds of different cars, but you can only get healthcare through the government? How could you possibly believe that would be an improvement?
And it does not stop there. The person that believes physicians who have had a DUI should face a Board sanction is the same person that believes marijuana should be legalized. Excessively controlling in the one instance, excessively permissive in the other.
It is a mystery.